"Godalming is at its best now". So wrote the sender of this card which was posted in Godalming on 23 July 1908 and sent to Mr. Jack H. Rockell in Brixton. The card shows the station building on Station Approach. Taxis have replaced the horses and carriages and the station building has been restored relatively recently but it otherwise looks very similar to the way it did a hundred years ago.

It wasn't the first station in the town. Godalming was initially at the end of the railway line and the terminus was on Old Station Road. In 1855 Richard Masey Hillier was the Station Master there and Godalming was described as being "on the Guildford and Godalming railway ... The London and Portsmouth railway, now in course of formation, will pass through the town¹". The South Western Railway opened in 1859 and Godalming and Farncombe were served by two stations.

In 1878² Frederick Charles Jearum (1846-1897) was the station master at both stations; he lived on New Way with his wife and family. Presumably they lived in the station house, shown above, though this is not clear. The 1881 census records that he was born in Winchester and was the father of seven children³. Mr. Martin W. Dodge was the goods manager at the old station at the same time^{2, 3}. He lived at Old Station House in Old Station Road. W. Wiggins, with premises in Bridge street, was a goods delivery agent².

Farncombe Railway station was opened on the 1st May 1898 and took the place of the Old Godalming station, which was then used as a goods depot⁴. In both 1901⁵ and 1913⁴ the following men were listed at the two stations and the depot:

[Godalming] Station, Edgar Ernest Smith, station manager ; Alfred Perry, goods agent, at Goods Depot station (Mr. Smith was born at Paddington and Mr. Perry at Salisbury)

Farncombe Railway Station, William Henry Pearce, station master (Mr. Pearce came from Woodbury in Devon)

Also see, in another section of this website:
Godalming, Surrey : A Personal View
Godalming, Surrey : Murder, Trial & Execution, 1817-18